


Before It Burns Me Numb

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character/relationship tags to be added as needed, Depressed Victor Nikiforov, Episode 10 Coda, Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst, Pining Victor Nikiforov, primarily stemming from mental health issues, stylistic tense-switching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 06:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: “What do you mean, you had a crush on me?” Yuuri asks. “We’d never even met before the Grand Prix Final last year.”Following their engagement, Victor tells Yuuri the story of how he met, fell for, and pined after Japan's Ace. Not necessarily in that order.An Ep10 coda... with a twist.





	1. Prologue: Barcelona

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is from Vienna Teng's Nothing Without You, which is... well, _relevant._
> 
> I've wanted to write a coda to Episode 10 since about five minutes after the episode aired, but it seemed that half the fandom beat me to it, and I didn't really have anything to say that hadn't been said already. But then, once the series was finished, I started digesting everything, and I came to the realization that— despite what the distorted lens of Yuuri's unreliable narration would have us believe— Victor absolutely knew who Yuuri was prior to Sochi. And it is law that a Victor who knows of Yuuri, likes Yuuri. And out of that thought, the "main" plot of this fic was born. I'm hoping to update weekly, or at the least every two weeks, but I'm pretty busy so I cannot make absolute promises on that score.
> 
> I'll shut up and let you all get on with the fic now (which is what I'm assuming you all are here for), but I have some additional notes regarding timeline accuracy in the endnotes, if any fellow sticklers for timeline have any interest in my ramblings on that score.
> 
> ETA: Can't _believe_ I forgot to take a minute to thank my beta team! Huge shoutout to Howl, Kells, Wings, Lunar, and of course my lovely gf Taylor. You guys really came through with picking this apart for me!

Yuuri excuses himself to take a shower shortly after they return to their hotel room. Mostly it’s because he really does need to wash up; he took only the most cursory shower after the exertion of open practice that morning, and roughly eight hours of rambling around Barcelona have left him feeling vaguely grungy. He knows he won’t feel much like showering tomorrow morning, so now is clearly the best time to clean up. But there’s also… well…

He looks down at his right hand, at the gold band encircling the fourth finger, and sighs. Tonight really got away from him, didn’t it? All he’d wanted was to do something nice for Victor. A nice afternoon out sightseeing and shopping and doing all the cheesy, touristy things that Victor absolutely _loves_ , because the plans they’d had for Moscow had been so derailed and because Victor deserves to be spoiled sometime. Only somehow it ended up with _matching rings_ , of all things!

Slipping the ring off, he ponders for a moment before setting it carefully in the middle of the floor, where there is no chance of it going down either the shower or the sink drain. He wants to take absolutely no risks with something so precious.

And it _is_ precious, Yuuri reflects as he turns on the hot water. Probably he should be freaking out right now. He isn’t— miraculously— but he _should_ be, because he’s apparently engaged now, of all things. He hadn’t meant the ring as an engagement present when he bought it. Well, maybe he had a _little_ — he’s been thinking a lot about rings and weddings and things ever since Victor’s comment about marriage proposals at the airport in Fukuoka. But that wasn’t what he had in mind when he bought it, honestly!

When he’d presented his _gift_ to Victor, he’d gone for the right hand without thinking. In Japan, wedding bands were worn on the left hand, and he hadn’t wanted to presume too much. It only occurred to him once he’d gotten Victor’s glove off that the right hand was the wedding hand in Russia (which is definitely not information he’s Googled at any point in the last few weeks, nope, not him, no way) and his own hands had trembled at the realization as he slipped the ring on Victor’s finger. And the look on Victor’s face…

Yuuri’s train of thought derails, and he spends most of the rest of his shower musing on the stunned expression Victor had worn during his almost-proposal. Surrounded by the soft lights around the cathedral, he’d looked almost angelic— appropriate, given the venue — and his eyes had been so _warm_. That was a good look on him, Yuuri thinks not for the first time that evening. And the fact that Victor had another ring, almost an exact match of the one Yuuri bought for him— well, it seems that once again, Victor met him just where he was.

He finishes his shower in a daze, still stuck on the way Victor had pulled him in for a tender kiss and a long, trembling hug after their exchange of rings.

Once he’s dry and warm in his cozy sweatpants and a soft cotton t-shirt he’s pretty sure is Victor’s, he slides his ring back on his finger. The metal is cool from having been sitting on the cold tile, a sharp contrast to the hot air in the bathroom, but it feels absolutely perfect on his hand. If this really is an engagement ring, it’s just right, and he loves how it looks against his skin.

He eventually shakes himself free from his reverie and emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, looking around the suite for his fiancé.

_His fiancé._

What a surreal thought.

Victor has changed into sweatpants as well and is lying on his back on their shoved-together beds, staring at the ring on his extended hand with a look of wonder on his face. It’s one of those moments that Yuuri is bowled over by the reminder that Victor truly, deeply cares about him. Yuuri isn’t always good at reading people, but there’s really no room for misinterpretation when it comes to the stunned softness of Victor’s expression as he admires the shiny golden band.

It almost seems criminal to interrupt whatever thoughts Victor is having at that moment, but Yuuri is a moron so he clears his throat.

Victor’s head turns slightly to look at him, and those eyes of his light up.

“Hi,” Yuuri says quietly, unable to suppress the bubbling feeling in his chest at seeing Victor.

“Hi,” Victor replies. He pats the mattress next to him in a clear invitation.

Yuuri needs no further prompting to cross the distance between them, bare feet padding over the scratchy hotel carpet. He crawls across their makeshift double bed, careful not to slip on the gap between the two mattresses, and settles in next to Victor, both of them stretched out on the mattress closest to the window. Their heads come to rest on the same pillow as Yuuri settles in, whisper-close and warm.

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” Victor murmurs, rolling onto his side to face Yuuri, his gold-adorned right hand coming up to rest at the dip in Yuuri’s waist.

“If you are, it’s a very good dream,” he responds dazedly, which he realizes isn’t a particularly clever reply, but with Victor so close, Yuuri’s train of thought often completely fails to leave the station, so he figures he can’t be blamed for sounding so twitterpated.

Victor nods ever so slightly, a soft, wondering smile on his lips. “The best. I’m so happy, Yuuri.”

Quite without his realizing it, Yuuri’s left hand has come up to cup Victor’s cheek, and he leans into the touch, eyes slipping closed almost involuntarily, and Yuuri can’t resist leaning in to brush a kiss against Victor’s mouth. Victor’s hand strokes down Yuuri’s torso, drawing out shivers as his fingers skim softly against the fabric of his t-shirt, and Yuuri responds by caressing the sensitive spot below Victor’s jaw with a feather-light brush of his thumb.

One kiss turns into two and two turns into many, one meeting of lips blurring into the next as they melt together. Time turns liquid and what little space there was between their bodies evaporates, pressing close.

As wrapped up in each other as they are, though, there’s no heat in it. They’re both tired from a long afternoon of sightseeing, and tonight isn’t a good time to take things further than these gentle caresses and the simple intimacy of shared breath. Yuuri finds his hand wandering around from Victor’s face to wind into his silky hair and forces himself to withdraw slightly; the exchange of kisses slows and eventually stops. He keeps his forehead pressed to Victor’s though, savoring the tenderness of the moment, and the sweet, overwhelmed look in Victor’s eyes as they open.

“Wow.” Victor’s voice is throaty and deeper than usual, and it makes him smile.

“Yeah.”

They spend some time just lying there, limbs tangled together, watching each other with wide eyes and silly smiles on their lips. They have a whole conversation in the language of sparkling eyes and wordless giggles. It’s absolutely saccharine, the kind of thing that would be too cheesy for even the sappiest of romance novels, and Yuuri _loves_ it.

As the minutes tick by, however, something in Victor’s gaze changes. His expression is still light and Yuuri can see the joy still lingering about his face, but there’s a thoughtfulness in his eyes that he knows means there’s something on his mind. Yuuri lets him think— Victor is very private when it comes to his innermost thoughts, and he doesn’t want to pressure him into sharing if he’s not ready to.

But the thoughtfulness grows and the look in Victor’s eye becomes something less like quiet reflection and more like actual discontent. By the time he starts chewing on his lower lip— Victor’s most obvious tell, and one of many reasons he’s never without his little tub of ridiculously expensive balm— Yuuri can tell that whatever thought’s pestering him is something that needs to be addressed, or he won’t sleep well.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks.

“What?” Victor blinks, startled, as if returning to the present from a great distance. “Oh! Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Although Victor Nikiforov may be gifted at deflecting inconvenient questions from fans and the press, he’s painfully transparent to anyone who actually knows him— and Yuuri does. He’s still reluctant to pressure him, but a little nudge can’t hurt.

“Are you sure? You look worried. Is it about the short program tomorrow?” No, that’s unlikely. Yuuri might be inclined to stress about competitions, but historically Victor has been almost frustratingly cavalier in his confidence in that area. So Yuuri amends, “Or is it something else?”

Apparently he didn’t need much more than a nudge after all, because Victor asks, “Do you really not remember the night we met?”

Yuuri blinks.

In all the fuss over Victor announcing the engagement they hadn’t actually discussed _in front of everyone_ , the revelation of his indiscretions at last year’s banquet had… well, not slipped his mind, but certainly been pushed to the back in favor of more urgent matters. But now that Victor’s brought it up again, all the embarrassment from earlier rushes back. If the thumbnails from Victor’s rather extensive collection of videos were anything to go by, he apparently humiliated himself even more comprehensively _off_ the ice in Sochi than he had _on_ it.

“Oh. Um. No,” he replies eventually.

He squints up at the ceiling, thinking back to that night. It’s so long ago that his recollections would probably be somewhat hazy even without the alcohol. “I remember drinking a lot, because I didn’t want to be there and I didn’t really know anyone besides Chris and and the Crispino twins anyway, and then it was hot, so I loosened my tie?” He looks back at Victor and shrugs. “After that, it’s pretty much blank until the next morning. I guess I kind of remember getting out of the hotel elevator..?”

If he hadn’t been making eye contact at the exact moment he said it, he might have missed the little dip in Victor’s expression. It’s actually not even a change in expression, really, but something shutters behind his eyes. “I see,” Victor says in his in-front-of-cameras voice. “Well, you missed quite the party, then.”

“Apparently,” Yuuri says dryly. But Victor’s eyes don’t lighten again, and Yuuri can tell he’s still missing something.

“Is something wrong?” he asks hesitantly.

“What? No! No,” Victor rushes to reassure him. Only then, voice a little quieter, he adds, “It’s just… that night was very special to me.”

Yuuri knows he can be a little oblivious when it comes to these kinds of things, but he isn’t an idiot. He can read between the lines to understand, more or less, what Victor is getting at. “I left that much of an impression?” he asks. And then, thinking back on some of the pictures he caught Chris showing to Phichit, he feels himself flush and adds, “Well, I guess some guy stripping down to his underwear at a formal party would be hard to forget.”

Victor chuckles, and it’s genuine, if a little strained. “That it would. You were… really something else.”

Reaching out, he grabs Victor’s hand and laces their fingers together. If he were just a little bolder, he might pull his hand up to his mouth to brush little kisses to Victor’s knuckles. Although they haven’t actually been together for very long, they lived in each other’s pockets for months before officially crossing the line from friends to lovers, and he had it figured out by mid-June that the best way to make Victor smile is with affection.

Well, maybe later. For now, though, he wants to sort this out.

“Are you upset?” he asks, annoyed at how his voice comes out, all tentative. He doesn’t want to go back to being timid with Victor the way he was back in the spring, but this whole banquet thing has him out of his depth. He clears his throat. “That I don’t remember, I mean?”

Victor seems to be a little hesitant as well, and he drops his eyes to study their clasped hands. “I shouldn’t be,” he says, in a good approximation of his usual airy tone. “It isn’t your fault at all that you don’t remember. Now that I think back, I’m surprised I didn’t consider the possibility that you were drunk enough to forget. I’d been watching you all night, you had at least a dozen flutes of champagne before you even started dancing. Probably more actually, and then another bottle or two that you grabbed from the table after.”

“Not counting the one I apparently poured over my naked body,” Yuuri observes wryly. He’s making the executive decision to find this funny, because if he doesn’t he’s going to have a complete meltdown and that isn’t a good idea for the night before the last short program of his career.

Victor scoffs, lips twitching upward in a hint of a smile. “No, not counting that one.” He squeezes Yuuri’s hand, and the smile warms, not quite spreading into that adorable heart-shape Yuuri loves so much, but getting there. “But to answer your question, _lapochka_ , no. I’m not upset that you don’t remember. Not with you, anyway. Maybe with myself, a little bit.”

Another befuddling statement. Yuuri doesn’t think he’s been this confused since… well, since his childhood idol showed up naked in his family’s onsen. “With yourself? _Why?_ ”

“I just assumed that you remembered that night. When I first arrived in Hasetsu, I behaved accordingly,” Victor says, and Yuuri thinks he spots a hint of pink rising in his cheeks. “I came onto you pretty strongly.”

Yuuri chuckles. “That’s an understatement.”

“God, you must have been so confused.”

“You could say that. I’d admired you for so long, but we’d never spoken before— or, I guess, we hadn’t as far as I was aware— but then all of a sudden you were in my home, holding my hand and touching my face and giving me bedroom eyes,” Yuuri reminds him, mostly because he wants to see if he can make Victor blush some more.

Victor, to his delight, groans and turns his head to hide his face in his pillow. It’s rare to see Victor flustered, but he’s precious when it does happen, and Yuuri is thoroughly charmed.

“I can’t believe I asked to sleep in your bed the very first night I got there,” he mumbles into the pillowcase.

Yuuri can’t contain his grin. “And don’t forget how you showed up _completely naked_ for our first meeting. Or how you whispered seductively in my ear about unleashing my inner eros in front of a fifteen year old.”

Victor whimpers.

“You fondled my lips,” Yuuri reminds him. “In _public_.”

The noise Victor makes is truly hilarious. “Yuuri… have mercy…”

Yuuri may find his fiancé’s blush adorable, but he isn’t cruel, so he relents. He rolls onto his side to face Victor and brings their joined hands up to his mouth like he’d wanted to earlier, dropping a little kiss just above where the ring rests. Victor’s head pops up from where he was hiding in the pillow, eyes wide with delight as he cooes Yuuri’s name.

 _He’s so easy_ , Yuuri thinks with a fond smile. He loves how responsive Victor is to affection: it’s the sweetest thing.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” he says softly after a rather extensive struggle not to get lost in those beautiful blue eyes. “Sure, you threw me for a loop there at the beginning, but we got it figured out, didn’t we? And anyway, none of that is nearly as bad as what I did at that banquet, so you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

Victor takes a few seconds to consider that, then nods. “I guess you’re right,” he says, still bright-eyed. “It’s just that I’d had a crush on you for so long, and then when we finally met it felt like we made such a _connection_ that night… I know alcohol lowers inhibitions, but I couldn’t understand why you were so shy when we met again.”

Under ordinary circumstances, Yuuri’s pretty sure he would be focusing on the second half of that statement, but the first half of the sentence is so thoroughly confusing that it distracts him from the rest.

“What do you mean, _you had a crush on me?_ ” he asks. “We’d never even met before the Grand Prix Final last year.” Not that he has room to talk— he’s had a crush on Victor since he was about nine years old.

Victor is blushing again, to Yuuri’s consternation, possibly even more than before. “Have I not told you?” he asks. “No, I’m sure I mentioned my little infatuation with you. After China, remember?”

Yuuri tilts his head to the side, thinking back. He _does_ recall Victor saying something when they got the chance to talk properly after their highly-publicized kiss, something along the lines of _I wanted to do that for so long_ , but at the time, Yuuri had assumed— “I thought you meant since you came to Hasetsu!” he sputters.

A saucy grin lights up Victor’s face; his confidence has returned in full force, though he’s still rosy-cheeked. “Ah, Yuuri, you’re determined to make me admit to how long I’ve been smitten with you? Very well, I’ll confess it all.” He gives a dramatic wink.

“C-confess what?” Yuuri asks, still a little thrown by the turn this conversation has taken.

“The truth of my longstanding infatuation with Japan’s Ace, of course,” he replies brightly, as if this isn’t somehow the most confusing answer possible.

Yuuri shakes his head, still trying to get his head around this. “That… makes no sense.”

“Of course it does!” Victor chirps happily. “Come, sit up, I’ll explain. It’s actually something of a long story.”

There’s a minute of shuffling around as they argue with the overly-squishy mattresses and have a near miss with the gap between them, during which one of Victor’s distressingly-bony elbows somehow finds Yuuri’s stomach with pinpoint accuracy. Eventually, though, they manage to get up from their state of repose, propped up comfortably against a mound of pillows. Yuuri’s head rests on Victor’s left shoulder and Victor’s arm is around him in a loose embrace.

“There. Now we’re comfy!” Victor says, curling his fingers around Yuuri’s shoulder and tucking him just a bit closer to his chest. “Now, where was I?”

“You tell me, you hadn’t started yet.”

“Very well, my Yuuri, let me take you on a journey to the long-ago time of the year two thousand and twelve.” Victor, ever the dramatic one, gives Yuuri another cheeky wink before making an expansive, sweeping gesture with his right hand, as if opening a stage for Yuuri’s inspection. “It was early February, and I was a young lad just recently turned twenty-four and in search of my second world championship title. Well, technically my third title in the senior division, but my second _consecutive_ title. Fifth title overall if you count the two times I won Worlds in the junior bracket, but that doesn’t—”

“ _Victor_ ,” Yuuri interjects, trying to sound stern but smiling too much to make it work. He knows that despite how it sounds, Victor isn’t deliberately boasting. His boyfriend— _fiancé!_ — does have ego to spare when it comes to his career, but mostly he’s a stickler for detail, and has a mind that will catch on a train of thought and chase it as far down the subsequent rabbit hole as humanly possible. When telling a story, Victor needs the occasional nudge back to the point to keep him from fixating on minutiae.

With a chuckle at Yuuri’s tone, Victor continues, “Anyway, it was the week of the Four Continents Championship, and I was looking up highlights from the week. I have to confess, I didn’t see many routines that really excited me— it was a pretty lackluster season in the men’s division all-around, 2011-2012 was really the ladies’ year— but I spotted a video with a very interesting title. Can you guess what it was?”

Given the subject they’re discussing, Yuuri can guess where this is going in a general sense, but… “No, I can’t.”

“Alright, I’ll tell you…”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding timeline:
> 
> As most people in the fandom are probably aware by now, there’s some debate about the actual time frame YOI is set in. While most of it seems to align with one year’s skating season, there are a few notable inconsistencies, which seem to have been intentional on the part of the creative team for various symbolic reasons— such as, among other things, Victor’s win at Junior Worlds in Sofia, Bulgaria, where Yuuri first saw him, which is a clear homage to Johnny Weir, and which took place in 2001, meaning that Victor would have been 13 at the time and just barely old enough to qualify for he junior division.
> 
> Since the timeline is therefore a little muddled, I’m electing to set the timeline of Season 1 as running from December 2014 (the Sochi GPF) through December 2015 (the Barcelona GPF), as these are the two most significant skating events in the series thus far and therefore seem to me to be the best benchmarks to use for determining timeline. With this in mind, that means Victor and Yuuri were born in 1987 and 1991, respectively, and that Victor’s championship streak began at Worlds in 2011. This would have made him 16 for the 2006 Turin Olympic Games (thus helping to contextualize Yuuri's statement that Victor was already "number one in the world" by age 16, as he is shown in Ep10 wearing a gold medal resembling those from that year's Olympics). I debated bumping up the timeline for the Sofia JWC from 2001 to 2002 (because hey, alternate reality, I can fudge timelines if I want!) but since Victor was ~~technically, just _barely_~~ old enough to compete in juniors by that time, I didn't ultimately see the need for it.
> 
> I'll shut up now, but stay tuned for my next rambly author's note where I talk about homophobia (or lack thereof) in the YOI 'verse and how the skating world in YOI differs from ours.


	2. In Which Victor Watches A Video

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a particularly lonely St. Valentine's Day, an exhibition skate from an up-and-coming Japanese skater captures Victor's attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, thank you to all of you for your wonderful comments, and for leaving kudos/bookmarking/subscribing etc. Your readership and feedback means tons! 
> 
> Next, because this is sort of the HERE TAKE ALL MY HEADCANONS ABOUT YUURI’S CAREER fic and will therefore have a lot of attention centered around various competitions, I feel it is worth mentioning that the field of skaters in YOI looks different from that in our world. It’s safe to say, for instance, that Evgeni Plushenko doesn’t exist/wasn’t a competitive skater in the YOI ‘verse (or if he was, Victor snatched that gold medal at the Turin Olympics right out from under his nose, as he was shown in Ep10 wearing a medal that looks suspiciously like the Olympic medals from that year), and the same can probably be said of Yuzuru Hanyu, considering that Yuuri is frequently referred to as Japan’s Ace and it seems unlikely that he would be considered Japan’s top skater if he were competing in the shadow of a rockstar like Yuzuru. In contrast, some skaters from our universe canonically exist in that universe (Stéphane Lambiel and Nobunari Oda in particular, as they have both appeared in canon as portrayed by their real world selves), so it’s clearly also not _totally_ different from our world.
> 
> What I’m getting at here is that, for any readers who follow real-world figure skating, please do not assume that the skating world I portray in this fic exactly mirrors the one in our own. I may occasionally mention a real-world skater here and there, but I intend to do my best to limit this as much as possible to skaters I know enjoy YOI and would therefore likely not be bothered by a name-check.
> 
> Relatedly, I will be referring to the rink where Yakov’s skaters train as Champion Sports Club, as it is in canon. Although it’s obviously based on Yubileyney Sports Palace, I’m trying to stay as true to the details of the YOI ‘verse as I can manage (such as using ISO rather than ISU). I’m sure I’ll miss things, but I’m going to do my best, because I’m a sucker for detail!
> 
> And, as one final note before I shut up and let you all get on with the chapter: Victor first seeing Yuuri on Valentine’s Day was not deliberate, but I was delighted by the coincidence. I haven’t been able to find the exact time of the 4CC 2012 gala, but since competition for that event wrapped up on the 12th of February, the exhibition gala could have been reasonably expected to take place on the 13th, likely in the afternoon. Therefore, videos from the exhibition could not have hit the internet until the morning of the 14th Saint Petersburg time at the earliest. So, you know, it’s a desperately cheesy thing for me to have played with so shamelessly once I noticed it, but… it’s Victor and Yuuri. They have the same middle name and it’s “schmaltz.”

_“The video was called_ **_YUURI WAS ROBBED!_ ** _— I remember it was in all capital letters, the person who uploaded it clearly felt quite passionate on the subject— and it was a recording of an exhibition skate,” Victor says._

_Yuuri’s brow furrows in confusion. “An exhibition?”_

_Victor nods sagely. “Yes. The silver medallist from Four Continents that year was a young Japanese skater, fresh off his first national title. Not quite a dark horse, as his ISO ranking was quite high, but certainly a fresh face on the podium. And he skated his exhibition that year to a gorgeous bit of Ennio Morricone movie music...”_

* * *

_February 14th, 2012 - Saint Petersburg, Russia_

The early afternoon sun shone through the high windows at the Champion Sports Club, but the watery midwinter light did not add significantly to the warmth in the room. It did, however, reflect off the ice— still fresh and shiny from the zamboni that had run while they broke for lunch— and right into Victor’s eyes. He squinted and turned his head away as the flare of light irritated the headache he’d been nursing all day, for which he had decided to blame Georgi Popovich.

The two of them were sharing private ice time in the afternoons for the next two weeks. As two of the three men's singles skaters who would be representing Russia at Worlds, and the only seniors under Yakov who had qualified this year, Yakov was devoting most of his time to them in the run up to Worlds. Those whose season was over were on cross-training and open ice time until the off-season, but for Victor, there was just a whole lot of uninterrupted quality time with Georgi. _Joy._

Normally Victor didn’t mind sharing ice time with him. The two of them had known each other since they were nine years old and still finding their feet on the ice in novices. Back then, they were just two boys born only a few hours apart, growing up in the same city, both interested in ice skating. It was only natural that they’d gravitated together. They hadn’t been under the same coach until about three years ago, when Georgi fired the coach who had seen him all the way through juniors and contracted with Yakov, but they’d maintained a friendship through all these years.

Well… maybe friendship was a strong word. They’d been friends when they were young, Victor was certain of that, bonding over a love of glam rock and choctaw turns. Something had changed over the years though, something Victor couldn’t put his finger on. Now maybe “friendly rivalry” would be a better way of putting it.

Whatever. It didn’t matter what they were to each other beyond the fact that Georgi was his rinkmate and, on this particular day, a massive pain in the neck.

“Do you think Malvina will like the roses I got her?” he asked.

Victor didn’t respond. He was pretty sure that the question, much like the dozens of others Georgi had asked since their lunch break, was rhetorical. If he could just ignore it until Yakov returned from his office, maybe he could keep the dull pounding in his temples from getting any worse.

“I think she will,” Georgi concluded with a decisive nod. “I was really worried about three dozen not being enough, so I got an orange bouquet too, just to be safe. The florist said orange roses symbolise desire and passion, so it will be perfect to show her how I feel!”

Victor wrinkled his nose involuntarily at the mental image of three dozen red roses and then a stray clump of orange. It was not the most aesthetically pleasing combination, in his opinion, especially since hardly anyone actually knew anything about flower language this days. Not to mention…

“How long have you been seeing this girl, again?” he asked, knowing he’d regret encouraging him.

“Three weeks!” Georgi announced proudly.

“Three weeks and you’re already giving her sexy flowers?” Victor asked skeptically.

Even Georgi wasn’t oblivious enough to miss the edge to his tone, and he gave him a faintly supercilious look. “Just because _you’re_ a cold fish who never falls in love with anyone doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer!”

Victor supposed he should probably take offense at this, but he smiled instead. “It just seems fast, that’s all. If I’d only been dating someone for a few weeks, I’d probably be giving him pink roses. Or lavender, maybe. And certainly not four dozen.”

Georgi scoffed. “First you’d have to have a relationship that lasted that long to begin with.”

“Fair enough,” he replied lightly, not rising to the obvious bait.

This, Victor reflected, was half the problem he was having today. Georgi waxing poetic about his _amazing_ new girlfriend and their _amazing_ chemistry and the _amazing_ date he had planned for after practice just served to hammer home the fact that Victor was single. He hadn’t had a relationship that made it past a second date in years. Being a workaholic had its drawbacks, and chronic singledom since before he turned twenty was one of them.

Usually it didn’t bother him, but every so often he’d find himself wistful. And, like the punchline to a bad joke, St. Valentine’s Day this year seemed to be bringing some loneliness to the surface. And Georgi, damn him, was twisting the knife. Possibly deliberately. Georgi was good company  most of the time, but every once in awhile he took it upon himself to be a real asshole.

Actually… Victor changed his mind about not rising to the bait. “At least I’ve never had to resort to internet dating, though,” he added in the same breezy tone.

“ _Dick._ ” Georgi had met Malvina online.

Victor just smiled blithely, leaning back against the boards. He wasn’t interested in antagonizing Georgi, but he wasn’t prepared to let his needling go unanswered, either.

“GEORGI! VITYA!”

Both of them startled at their coach’s voice roaring at them from much closer than they had expected. Yakov had a way of sneaking up on a person, which was amazing for someone whose knees made more noise than the engine of a 1980 Yugo.

“If you have time to squabble like schoolboys about your love lives, you have time to talk about something _productive_ ,” Yakov growled, arms crossed and glaring them down. “Four Continents this week. Thoughts?”

“I liked the Filipino’s short program. Nice music choice, and his energy was fantastic. It was ambitious to have the program build to the end like that. I think he was underscored,” Georgi said immediately.

Yakov pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Thank you, Georgi. Anything to say about the skaters who actually made the top ten? Those who might be actual _competition_ for you next month at Worlds?”

Georgi pondered for a moment. “Marsh replaced the first quad toe in his free with a quad salchow that he wasn’t landing during the GP series. I think the boost to his TES is honestly the only reason he managed to take gold, considering how sloppy his edgework got in the second half. Not that the silver medallist was much better. That Japanese kid? His programs were very nice, but I think he’s style over substance.”

Yakov grunted. “Better. With two quads in his roster, Marsh will be one to watch out for.” He turned his glower on Victor instead. “And you, Vitya? Any thoughts to share?”

Victor, whose stomach had been slowly sinking for the last sixty seconds, scratched nervously at the back of his neck, gave Yakov a bright smile, and simply said, “I forgot to watch.”

Yakov stared at him for several seconds before echoing flatly, “You… forgot to watch.”

“I did.”

“You, Victor Nikiforov, reigning world champion, forgot to watch the last major international competition before you have to defend that title. The _last chance_ to evaluate your competitors. And even though Saturday was your rest day and I gave you two hours off in the morning on Sunday, you still somehow have not watched any of the performances. Is that what you are telling me?”

“Yes, Yakov.”

“ _Victor Abramovich, you are going to drive me to an early grave!_ ”

“Oooh, he broke out the patronymic,” Georgi muttered, looking utterly delighted.

“What on earth did you manage to do with all that free time, if you weren’t watching Four Continents?!” Yakov demanded, shooting Georgi a brief, quelling look but otherwise ignoring his interjection.

The truth was that Victor had spent most of Saturday curled up with a book that he couldn’t seem to focus on long enough to make it through a chapter, taken restless naps throughout the day, and then lain awake so long into the night staring at his ceiling that even with the extra two hours on Sunday morning, he’d overslept and nearly been late to practice. But he had no intention of telling Yakov any of that.

“Oh, this and that,” he said brightly.

Yakov opened his mouth and Victor prepared himself to tune out a standard bout of Yakov’s shouting, but then he seemed to think better of it, shook his head, and sighed. “What am I going to do with you?” he muttered, voice oddly low. Then, at a more normal volume— by Yakov’s standards— he continued, “You had damn well better watch at least the top five when you go home tonight or so help me God, I’ll have Darya run you so hard in cardio you’ll be begging to go back to juniors!”

“Yes, Yakov,” Victor said, and he did his best to sound sincere.

“See to it. I want you and Georgi eating lunch here tomorrow, not sneaking off to that little cafe, and I want you going over Marsh’s free skate in excruciating detail while you eat. For now, since _apparently_ we won’t get anything useful out of talking through Four Continents, I want drills on each of your combinations and then we’ll go through full run-throughs from both of you.”

“Yes, Yakov,” the two skaters chorused.

Yakov let out a huffy sigh and clapped his hands. “Well, get to it!”

* * *

 

The very best part of coming home after a long day, Victor reflected, was how happy Makkachin always was to see him. He could hear her nails click-clacking on the hardwood floor of his entryway before he’d even got the key turned in the lock, and by the time he’d cracked the door open, she had squeezed out through the smallest of openings and launched herself at him. It was only by virtue of being very used to this routine that Victor managed to avoid being completely knocked to the hall floor.

He chuckled as Makkachin gave him sloppy kisses and scooped her up in his arms to carry her back inside. He settled down in one of the armchairs by the window with her in his lap, and ran his fingers through her thick curls, cooing to her as her tail wagged frantically. She kept nosing at his shirt, perhaps smelling the bit of mayonnaise he’d spilled on his jacket at lunch, and Victor chuckled again at her wiggly enthusiasm.

This, too, had become a routine. After being out and about all day, dealing Yakov and his rinkmates and whatever his sponsors had in store for him and sometimes fans that would stop him in public to ask for pictures and whatnot… well, it was a lot. Victor frequently came home just as worn down emotionally as he was physically, and the undemanding affection of his dog was a balm for his flagging spirits.

It was late when he left headed home, Yakov having kept him in one of the studio rooms for off-ice choreography work as late as was safe this close to Worlds. The sun had already set. Georgi, the prick, had begged off early citing his plans with Mariya— or whatever her name was— as an excuse, and for some reason Yakov had actually let him go. No such concessions for dateless, single Victor, however.

His walk home had taken him past several nice restaurants, so in addition to being freezing, he’d been treated to the sight of a huge number of couples sitting near windows, holding hands across tables and making eyes at each other. The sight had made Victor uneasy.

He’d been single, as Georgi had oh-so-kindly pointed out, for a _very_ long time. He’d had a sweetheart or three when he was a teenager, one of them even serious— or as serious as a relationship between sixteen-year-olds could be— but none of them had lasted especially long, and his well of dates had run quite dry in recent years. It wasn’t for lack of potential partners, exactly, but nothing ever quite clicked. It seemed some days like he just had no chemistry with anyone, and even when there was a spark, he inevitably smothered it by forgetting to call the poor men back for days or weeks at a time. Skating had to come first, it always had.

Sometimes he felt a little bit frozen in place. Nothing had really changed since he was sixteen and got dumped for never being available when his boyfriend called. The only difference was that now, being single on St. Valentine’s Day was actually starting to bother him. He was a romantic at heart, and the hearts-and-flowers thing appealed to him immensely, but never in his life had he managed to time a relationship so as not to be single at this time of year.

“I’m not lonely,” he said aloud. “After all, I have you, Makkachin!”

Makkachin responded with a _boof_ and a lick to the tip of his nose, which made him giggle appreciatively, and allowed him to disrupt the self-pitying direction his thoughts had begun to take. She really was the best friend a man could have, he mused while running a hand through the poodle’s curls.

Eventually, though, she got tired of being held and jumped unceremoniously from Victor’s lap and trotted away to investigate something in the kitchen. He would need to take her outside soon but first he needed to stretch.

He’d done his cool-down at the rink, but that by itself wasn’t enough these days. His body at twenty-four was very different from what it had been at eighteen, and if he wanted to keep skating for more than another two or three years, he had to be smart about how he treated it now. Now, when he returned from practice in the evenings, at least some light yoga was in order.

Victor sighed and, with some effort, got to his feet, feeling his knees protest almost as much as his mind did at the idea of moving. But if he let inertia set in, he was just as likely to fall asleep right there in his chair.

Fifteen minutes and the discovery of several previously-unnoticed bruises later, the sound of Makkachin whining at the door was his cue to leave off contorting himself into painful positions. He gratefully dropped out of his final pose, and went to get her leash.

He’d wanted to take a shower before going back outside, but Makkachin’s needs superseded his own. If some trashy tabloid happened to run a photo of him in his practice sweats and messy hair… well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to him.

As it turned out, the only people he saw between leaving his apartment and returning to it were the doorman and his elderly downstairs neighbor— a fabulously wealthy old widow who, as she often did, patted his cheek and told him that a sweet boy like him ought to find a nice girl to settle down with. He laughed, assured her as he always did that there was no chance of that ever happening, and climbed the last flight of stairs to his level.

Unclipping Makkachin’s leash as he pushed the door open, he kicked off his shoes in the entryway and shucked off his jacket. He padded in stocking feet in the direction of the bathroom, now eager for that shower he’d put off. Before he could reach his destination, however, his phone chirped in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the notifications to find a text from Christophe.

Victor’s stomach lurched at seeing Chris’s name even before he read the message, and when he did, the mood Makkachin had successfully lifted plummeted again.

**[20:03]  
Swiss Chris:**

what, no birthday wishes from my best rival?

**[20:04]  
Swiss Chris:**

victor, I’m hurt

With all the internal wallowing he’d been doing about the holiday, he’d forgotten that St. Valentine’s Day wasn’t the only significance to February 14th. He was not a very good friend, was he?

He eyed the message for a few moments, hesitating. Victor didn’t know if he really had the energy for a call right now… but he owed Chris that much, at least. For the sake of his own guilty conscience, if nothing else, right?

Electing to switch to his Fly app rather than the dubious reliability of an international call, he clicked on the video chat icon next to Chris’s name.

Chris answered quickly. He was leaning back against the sofa in his flat, which Victor knew from experience was much more comfortable than his own. Dim lighting threw half his face into shadow, creating stark contrast across the hard angles of his features, but the sly smile he wore as the call connected was easily discernible.

“And here I was, thinking you’d forgotten all about me,” he said with a pout.

Victor ran a hand through the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry to leave it so late, you know how easily things slip my mind.”

“You didn’t used to be this forgetful,” Chris chided. There was no real censure in it, but Victor felt the sting anyway.

Instead of acknowledging it, he said, “Happy birthday, Chris. How is twenty-two treating you?”

“Oh, fabulously, no thanks to Josef. He refused to give me the whole day off, can you believe it? I spent the whole morning at the rink before he finally let me go.”

Victor couldn’t particularly relate. He’d spent every birthday for over a decade now at nationals, but he laughed and called Josef a holy terror anyway.

“It’s fine, though,” Chris continued. “My sister drove down from Zürich and we’re going clubbing tonight.”

“Ah. And how is Emilie?” Victor asked, avoiding letting his distaste show as best he could.

He’d met Chris’s sister once, when he’d been vacationing with them at their parents’ chateau in the French Alps. She had come onto him… _strongly_ . Victor didn’t mind Chris’s flirting, because it really boiled down to harmless banter between friends that they both knew would never go anywhere. Emilie, however, was flirting with _intent_. Maybe if he were straight or even bisexual, he would have been flattered; as it was, it had just made him want to leave. The whole farce had reminded him of a character in an Austen novel he’d read a time or two.

Mercifully, Chris had more spine than Charles Bingley, and had had the decency to tell his sister to back off. She’d been very contrite about it afterwards, and apologized for making him uncomfortable, but Victor couldn’t shake the bad impression it had left him with.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Chris replied. “She’s around here somewhere— want to say hi?”

“I’ll pass,” Victor said, and his expression must have betrayed him, because Chris laughed.

“Never fear, _mon ami_ , she’s engaged now. You’re safe.”

“Engaged? Really?”

Chris pulled a sour face. “I know. Tying herself down when she’s not even twenty-six, can you imagine?”

Victor shook his head at his friend’s dramatics. He really couldn’t understand Chris’s objection to monogamy. But then again, Chris was almost as devoted to his career as Victor was; he supposed if he had a libido as active as Chris’s, he might be more enthusiastic about the flexibility of casual relationships, too.

“I can’t wait for the day you actually fall in love with someone,” Victor said. “What will you do then?”

“Probably panic and avoid him for the rest of my life,” Chris replied with a laugh. “But really, Victor, hypocrisy doesn’t look good on you.”

“What do you mean?”

“How long has it been since you were with anyone at all?”

Although Chris was only teasing, Victor couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose in annoyance. Why did everyone keep bringing up his lack of a love life today? It was the very last thing he wanted to talk or think about. It seemed as though everyone but him was either paired off or quite content with their bachelorhood.

“Enough about my sex life,” he said. “In the interests of _your_ sex life, I won’t keep you much longer. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your night out.”

Chris gave a faux-shocked gasp. “Victor Nikiforov, are you suggesting that I would bring someone home while my own sister is staying with me?”

Victor didn’t say anything, but raised an eloquent eyebrow.

Chris kept his scandalized expression in place for a few moments more before he cracked, easy laughter tumbling from his lips. “Alright, yes, I absolutely would. And plan to. Emilie doesn’t mind, she knows how it is. She was just the same before she met Alan.”

“I’ll let you get to it, then. You’re not wearing nearly enough glitter to be going to any kind of discotheque, and I’ve got to get caught up on Four Continents or Yakov might just skin me alive.”

Chris’s eyes widened. “Oh, haven’t you watched yet?” At Victor’s shake of the head, his eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re in for a treat, then. An old friend I know from our junior days took silver this year, and his free skate was really something else.”

A memory from earlier that afternoon niggled at him. Georgi had said something about the silver medalist, hadn’t he?

“My rinkmate gave him mixed reviews,” he remarked as he struggled to remember exactly how Georgi had put it.

Chris shrugged. “That’s fair. Yuuri’s a gorgeous skater, but he’s inconsistent sometimes. Not weak technically, by any means. I’d kill for triple axels that consistent. But… I don’t know, some days it’s just not there for him.”

“Everybody has rough skates, I suppose,” Victor mused as Chris pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“True enough, though he seems to have more than most. Maybe his coach is a bad fit for him, who knows? Not that he’d say anything to me if that were the case. We’re not as close as we used to be— he’s even worse about texting back than you are.”

Victor made some token protest at that, but mentally he was already disengaging from the conversation. He’d been having a hard time being invested in Chris’s chatter tonight, and he mostly just wanted the conversation to end. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to make my own judgments about his skating, then.”

“Yes, go watch.” Chris waved a hand. “I’d hate to hear that Yakov had your pretty skin made into a rug for that hideous house of his.”

Victor snorted. “He would never. I pay him too much for him to _actually_ skin me. Now, enjoy your birthday debauchery.”

“You know I will. Do you want details later?” He gave a saucy wink, and Victor disconnected the call unceremoniously.

A moment later a message popped up in the conversation window.

 

_Chris-G: i assume that’s a no, then_

 

Victor rolled his eyes as he typed up a response

 

_v-nik: good assumption_  
_v-nik: have a nice night_  
_Chris-G: i’ll do my best not to pull any muscles_  
_Chris-G: wouldn’t want to make worlds too easy for you_

 

He let out a soft a breath that was almost a laugh. Setting his phone screen-down on his thigh, fingers tapping absentmindedly on the back of the case, he turned his gaze up to the ceiling, contemplating.

When did talking to his friends start to make him feel so drained that he was desperate to end the conversation after— he checked the timestamp from the call— three minutes and forty seconds? _God_. Training must have wiped him out even more than he thought.

“I think I’m getting old, Makkachin,” he announced, though he didn’t think she was actually in the room anymore.

Maybe he’d skip the shower tonight. He could do it before he went to the rink in the morning. Assuming he woke up in time. Yes, he’d set an earlier alarm to make _sure_ he could get a shower in. For now though… dinner.

Actual cooking seemed like a lot of effort, too. Victor pulled out one of the frozen pre-prepared meals his dietician had forced on him. The whole thing was desperately American in presentation, but Eva had reached the end of her rope with his inability to adhere to his diet plan, and forced the delivered dinners on him about four years earlier. They weren’t as tasty as his own cooking, but Victor didn’t have a lot of self-control when it came to adding cream and butter to things, so for the sake of his health that was probably for the best. Besides, cooking for one was just _sad_ , especially on St. Valentine’s Day, so heating up a pre-made was just easier all around.

A few minutes and a bit of microwaving later, Victor had a meal that even Yakov couldn’t complain about. He eyed the chicken breast dubiously— the package said it was supposed to be lemon-marinaded but it mostly just looked unseasoned and tasteless— but he needed the protein, so he scooped the whole thing dutifully out of the tray and onto a plate, which he carried over to the living room.

He grabbed his laptop, figuring a bigger screen would be better for the kind of analysis Yakov wanted from him, and settled in, nibbling at a bit of potato. Opening up YouVid, he searched for an upload of the short programs. Hopefully someone would have put up one of the Eurosport broadcasts already...

No such luck. After scrolling through two pages of search results, he resigned himself to suffering through American commentary.

He clicked on a video titled _[4CC 2012 SP last group ] [USABC English broadcast] [Part 1/4]_. The page took a few seconds to load and then—

 

_This video is not available in your country. :/_

 

Victor dropped his head back against the armrest. The little emoticon at the end of the sentence where his video should be playing was mocking him, he was sure of it.

Looked like he was going to have to do this the hard way. In another tab, he pulled up the results table from the ISO website and ran another search, this time looking for an individual upload of Kyle Marsh’s programs. He found what he was looking for quickly, and even managed to find both the SP and the FS with French commentary. It might not be as easy as watching a full broadcast, but it would suffice, he supposed.

The Four Continents gold medalist was… good. Very good, actually. Georgi had been right in his remarks about his edges getting sloppy in the latter half of his free skate, though. Probably the result of fatigue. His base score was high enough to make him notable competition, especially if he upped the technical difficulty at all before Worlds, but overall Victor wasn’t impressed. The numbers were there, but his pure skating skills were average, and while his PCS was solid, it all seemed very… rote. Predictable.

He made a few mental notes, just a few key things he’d need to remember to be able to have a sensible discussion tomorrow in order to pacify Yakov, and was about to move on to his next search when the title of one of the recommended videos in the sidebar caught his eye:

 

**_YUURI WAS ROBBED!!!_ **

 

The thumbnail depicted a dark-haired man on the ice, lit by a blue spotlight. It didn’t show the skater’s face clearly, but the name struck him. _Yuuri_ … that had to be Christophe’s friend, right? The inconsistent silver medalist.

He should really look up his programs from earlier in the week. But the title of the video intrigued him, perhaps because he knew they had a friend in common. After a moment’s consideration, he clicked on the video. As it buffered, he read the description:

 

**|| jpnskate91 • Uploaded 7 hours ago**

_Yuuri Katsuki’s EX skate at 2012 4CC gala. can’t believe_  
_he lost to Marsh, just look at him! the judges must be out_ _  
of their minds!!! ISO give the gold to Katsuki!!!!!!_

 

It was the kind of remark Victor was used to seeing from figure skating fans. Everyone had their inclinations, and he supposed it was only natural to be upset when your favorite got less than you felt they deserved. But from what Georgi and Chris had said about this skater, he doubted it was really warranted in this case.

But then the video began playing at last, and Victor’s train of thought was interrupted.

Katsuki knelt at center ice, head bowed and bare palms pressed to the ice, face hidden from the camera as an announcer in the background called out his name. And then the [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jSotUeV0WI) started.

For the first few bars, Katsuki remained motionless, letting the music lead. It was a song from an old movie made before Victor was born, a piece he recognized almost immediately. It would actually make a good choice for a short program, he thought. Deeply emotional and evocative of something sublime beyond comprehension. Victor had been skating exclusively to original compositions for several years now, but if he were going to choose a pre-existing piece, this would—

Katsuki raised his head as the cello swelled into the melody, and Victor’s jaw dropped.

He was _beautiful_.

His exhibition costume was lovely. Victor got a good look at the outfit at last as he rose up smoothly from the ice; navy pants and a ruffled shirt in shades of blue and white layered over each other to create an effect like a waterfall spilling down his chest. Appropriate, given the film the song was taken from. But it wasn’t Yuuri Katsuki’s _clothes_ that made Victor’s fingers clench on the sides of his laptop.

It was the eyes that arrested him first. Rich brown that appeared almost black in the blue light that illuminated the ice, framed by thick lashes, and with such a look of sheer wistfulness in his gaze as he took his first gliding steps across the ice that Victor almost felt he was intruding on something private just by looking at them. And the rest… the little button nose, the soft lips, the slight roundness to his cheeks and the tiniest hint of dimples… _good lord_.

But Victor had only moments to marvel at Yuuri Katsuki’s appearance, because the performance commenced in earnest, and he could do nothing but watch in amazement.

The exhibition program wasn’t an aggressively technical piece.

Some skaters used their exhibitions to showcase elements they weren’t confident enough in to use in competition; landing high-difficulty jumps and pushing limits was easier in exhibitions, when there were no rules to adhere to and the pressure was off. He himself was using his exhibition this year to show off his quad lutz. Maybe he’d be ready to put it in one of his programs next year, but for now he didn’t think it was consistent enough for competition.

But that wasn’t what Katsuki did. He wasn’t shy about highlighting that triple axel— and yes, it was just as clean and controlled as Chris had said— and the program was heavy on spins, but this was clearly about the choreography above all. It was about the _dance_.

There was a story in that choreography somewhere. Not the plot of the film the music had been taken from, certainly, but just as bittersweet. A story about longing, about reaching for impossible heights. About the glory of Icarus in those haunting, beautiful moments before the wax melted and he plunged into the sea.

What kind of sentiment led to the creation of such a program?

God, and it was so _heartfelt_ , too! It was clear that every movement, every flutter of fingertips and tilt of the head was designed to convey the emotion of the routine. Either Katsuki had done his own choreography, or whoever had must have known him well and worked with him closely to build something like this together.

As the program neared its conclusion, Katsuki dipped into an astonishing Charlotte spiral, bent at the waist at an angle that took Victor’s breath away. One arm laid back along his torso, while the other extended in front of him as he executed a long, curving glide. His fingers brushed the ice before him like a lover’s caress for a few moments before he raised the extended arm, the rest of his body following as he transitioned out of the spiral position, reaching up, up, up to the sky as he allowed his momentum to slow. For a few breathless moments it was as though time stood still as he held that position on the ice, before the violin picked up the melody again and he turned and swept away, that outstretched arm dropping and swirling out in a graceful arc.

Skimming across the ice, he built up just enough momentum for one last combination spin— a daring transition from a beautifully-positioned half-Biellmann to a sit spin. As the music faded away on a tremulous vibrato from the string section, he dropped out of the spin position and onto his knees, sliding a half-meter or so across the ice in a move that he would never get away with in competition but which was the perfect end to an ecstatic program.

And so it began as it ended, with Yuuri Katsuki kneeling on the ice, now with his face upturned and both hands stretched above his head, fingers spread in a grasping reach towards something unseen.

For a split second, there was dead silence, and then the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. As Katsuki got to his feet, waving and bowing to the audience with a wide grin on his face, the video ended abruptly and Victor was left staring at the replay button in the middle of the screen.

It took several seconds for Victor to remember how to breathe.

Ever since his second Olympics last year, Victor had occasionally found himself contemplating the effect he’d had on the sport. He knew he’d been instrumental in elevating figure skating to new levels over the last few years. He wasn’t modest enough to pretend otherwise. He was still young enough that he had years left in him, but he’d already left a tangible impact on how the game was played, so to speak. Last year at the GPF he'd landed the first ratified quadruple flip in history, and that was just his latest boundary-pushing achievement.

His technical prowess had been remarkable from an early age, and his skill as a jumper had pushed the limits of what was previously thought possible. When he first entered the senior division, a single quad toe loop was enough for a skater to secure a world championship or Olympic gold. But as he had progressed, adding quads to his roster as the years rolled on to build his technical scores ever higher, the focus of the whole field of skaters had shifted. And he might not be the only factor driving that change, but he knew he was one of the biggest ones.

Lately he’d been wondering if that was a good thing. He’d fallen in love with this sport for its beauty, for the elegance and creativity of it, and it seemed as though that was falling by the wayside in favor of an upcoming generation of remarkable jumpers. Victor kept his edge by unifying the two— athletics and artistry in one— but sometimes he wondered if he was one of a dying breed.

But here… here was this Yuuri Katsuki.

Yuuri Katsuki from Japan.

Yuuri Katsuki, who moved like he was made of water and who was laying himself bare on the ice in a way that Victor had rarely seen. Yuuri Katsuki with exquisite spin position and a triple axel so clean it made Victor want to cry. Yuuri Katsuki who had evoked something deeper in Victor than just the pleasure of witnessing a well-executed performance.

Both his free skate and his short program from earlier that week were recommended videos in the sidebar, and Victor eagerly opened up the free in a new tab to let it buffer and clicked through to the SP in the meanwhile. Once the video was loaded enough to watch without interruptions he dove in, eager to see more of Katsuki’s skating.

Roughly twelve minutes later, Victor sat back, letting out a cleansing breath as he set the laptop on his end table while he assimilated what he’d just witnessed.

Katsuki’s competition programs were… different than that exhibition. Obviously that was true in a general sense for any skater. Exhibitions were _carte blanche_ , unfettered by competitive regulation. But in Katsuki’s case, the difference was a little more noticeable than most. Victor couldn’t quite put his finger on what the difference actually was, but it was definitely there. Something subtle in his body language that would take more than one viewing to quantify.

Ultimately, he agreed with the judges’ decision regarding scores at Four Continents. Marsh’s programs had both been littered with small flaws that, though they made for a less enjoyable artistic experience, didn’t deduct significantly from his total points. Katsuki was beautiful to watch, and his PCS scores in both his programs were ridiculous, but with a deduction for a fall in his SP and a negative GOE on one of his jumps, he just didn’t have the numbers to make up the gap entirely. The points were close, but Georgi had been right— that quad sal Marsh had added gave him the advantage.

And yet… Katsuki was just plain more fun to watch. Chris had been spot on when he’d said that the FS was a treat; the music choice was bouncy and vivacious and Victor actually found himself pausing halfway through to rewatch a gorgeous triple flip-half loop-triple lutz combo. Katsuki was a good skater, with the potential to be a _great_ skater. Victor found himself hoping that his coach— Celestino Cialdini, who Victor had encountered at functions now and again and whose thick, luxurious hair he deeply envied— would be able to develop that potential. If Katsuki kept improving, he could be some real competition.

Victor knew he needed to continue watching the rest of the skaters’ programs. He would need to watch at least the top five to satisfy Yakov. He’d seen from skimming the ISO results table that Rippon, that American who did fancy things with the raised arms, had placed fourth, so that would likely be enjoyable to watch. At the very least, he needed to watch the other American’s programs so he could honestly say he’d watched all three medallists.

But the recommended video list down the side of the screen was a siren song as he pulled his laptop back over to him. Katsuki’s prior performances called out, tempting him to look more closely at the intriguing skater from Japan.

He hesitated, knowing he should search for the next skater in the lineup and move on.

His finger hovered over the trackpad, cursor hovering over the search bar.

Victor clicked on a video titled **_Yūri Katsuki - JWC 2009 - FS “Lohengrin”_ **

* * *

 

_Yuuri’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god, the Gabriel’s Oboe exhibition?”_

_“Yes, it was exquisite. Who did the choreography? That didn’t look like Celestino’s work.”_

_“No, Minako did it for me. Celestino did my competition pieces that year, but I was…” His breath catches for a moment, because admitting this is hard even years later, but it’s_ Victor _, so he opens up. “Well, I was feeling homesick, and I wanted to dance something more familiar.”_

_Victor’s fingers squeeze his shoulder gently, pulling him in just a bit closer for a moment. “I can only imagine. Being away from home for that long…”_

_Yuuri nods. “I liked living in Detroit, but it wasn’t always easy. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Are you seriously telling me you first heard of me as long ago as that?”_

_Victor snorts. “The first time I heard of you? Of course not! You’d been skating at the international level for the better part of six years at that point, and I do make it a point to know my competition.” His tone is a little scandalized, as if not knowing Yuuri’s name would be some kind of cardinal sin. “But yes, that was the first time I’d_ seen _you. Or at least, the first time I’d really looked.”_

_“Wow. I figured you didn’t even know my name until after the Grand Prix Final last year,” he says. “We were never at the same events except for Worlds, and even there we never ended up in the same flights.”_

_“Not for lack of trying,” Victor mutters._

_“What?”_

_“Ah-ah.” Victor wags a remonstrative finger at Yuuri. “Not so fast, my Yuuri. That part of the story comes later!”_

_Yuuri’s curiosity is piqued, but he knows Victor well enough that it will be better if he just lets him be dramatic and mysterious about this. Besides, Victor is almost as talented a storyteller off the ice as he is on it, and Yuuri’s enjoying listening to him. Especially because, so far, the story has been very flattering to him. He’s not so sure that Victor’s current feelings aren’t coloring his memory somewhat, because there’s no way someone like Victor was that charmed by one measly exhibition, but it’s still a nice boost to his ego._

_“The 2011-2012 season was a weird season for me,” Yuuri muses. “I messed up both of my Grand Prix qualifiers, but I did really well in the back half of the season.”_

_Victor nods. “I know. I was paying attention.”_

_Yuuri tilts his head to look up at him. “Is that the next part of the story, then?”_

_“Not quite. The next part of the story is… well, you know that thing that happens when you learn a new word, and you could swear you’ve never heard it before in your life, but after you learn it, suddenly you start hearing it everywhere…?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case the in-text link ever breaks in future, the music Yuuri skates to in this chapter is music from The Mission (specifically the tracks "Gabriel's Oboe" and "The Falls"), composed by Ennio Morricone and performed by Yo Yo Ma.
> 
> My author's note at the beginning was already deplorably long, so I've elected to save my rambling thoughts on the lack of homophobia in the YOI universe for another time (or perhaps a tumblr post) but the tl;dr version is this: YOI, for me, takes place in the kind of world where 99.99% of people wouldn’t have to be afraid to come out, because overt/violent homophobia is a thing of the distant past, but it _is_ the kind of world where coming out might still be technically necessary because people still lowkey assume cishet = default. Possible microaggressions and frustrating heteronormativity, but you will never ever see anything beyond that in my portrayal of these characters and their world.


	3. In Which Victor Discovers He Has A Fan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor finds himself captivated by Yuuri's skating, and intrigued by the man himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha wow. So. It's uh... been almost two months. Sorry about that! Life got more than a little crazy, I had a death in the family, things kept coming up that cut into my writing time, and I struggled like the dickens with getting the sequence of events in this chapter right. I had initially planned for this chapter to also include 2012 Worlds, but I figured I had kept you all waiting long enough, so Worlds is reserved for next chapter.
> 
> This chapter has not been beta'd as rigorously as usual, as most of my betas were unavailable yesterday and I didn't want to keep you all waiting any longer. I may go back and make some corrections and edits once a couple people have had the chance to look it over, but for the time being, I ask for your grace with any errors you may find. That said, big thanks to Jess, who was gracious enough to give it a glance and make sure there was nothing egregious!

_“You know that thing that happens when you learn a new word, and you could swear you’ve never heard it before in your life, but after you learn it, suddenly you start hearing it everywhere?”_

_Yuuri frowns, a little confused by this sudden, apparent change of subject. “Um… yes? Why?”_

_Victor’s expression softens into something a little nostalgic. He runs a hand absentmindedly up and down Yuuri’s arm. “Well, that’s what happened with you. I’m not sure if it was just a coincidence and I was just hearing your name everywhere because I was thinking about you so much or if people had been talking about you that much before and I just never noticed, but it was like you were suddenly everywhere.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“Of course, you’d been considered an up-and-coming star in Japan since you were fifteen, but that season was really the point at which people started to consider you a serious contender internationally. You know how it is when somebody makes a splash— people talk, word gets around.”_

_Yuuri nods. He’s seen that happen time and again as younger skaters start climbing the ranks. He remembers when Lars Ivarson from Sweden managed to place fourth at Worlds two years ago in his senior debut, and even though nobody had known his name up until that point, afterwards he was considered one to watch._

_“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says after mulling that over for a few seconds. “It’s weird to think of that applying to myself.”_

_“Well that’s how it happened,” Victor asserts, nodding firmly. “It started at practice the very next day, actually…"_

* * *

 

_February 15th, 2012 - Saint Petersburg, Russia_

The majority of Victor’s ice time was currently shared with Georgi— two hours before noon and two hours after— but two days a week Victor had an extra hour of ice time booked for solo practice time in the leadup to Worlds.  An hour of individual ice time at one of the most famous rinks in Europe was not cheap, but Victor had a title to defend, and with as much as his name was worth after two Olympic titles and a handful of world championships scattered across the junior and senior divisions, he could afford it. It was worth it to be able to make full use of the rink and dedicate his absolute attention to his programs, with no thought spared for avoiding anyone else on the ice.

On that particular Wednesday morning, however, Victor had barely made it to the rink by his nine a.m. start time. And frankly, by the time he’d been on the ice fifteen minutes, he was starting to realize he might just as well have stayed at home— the extra sleep would have been just as productive.

“Vitya, what the hell has gotten into you?” Yakov barked, as Victor pulled up short after another failed attempt at his quad salchow. “That’s the fourth time you’ve under-rotated that jump this morning.”

Victor shook his head. “Sorry, Yakov. I’m a little tired, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Yakov frowned more deeply than usual. “You’re not having insomnia again, are you? Because you should talk to your doctor if the melatonin supplements aren’t cutting it anymore—”

Cutting him off with a wave of his hand, Victor gave his coach a sunny smile. “No, no. No need to worry, Yakov, it’s nothing like that. I just stayed up a little too late watching uploads from Four Continents and had a hard time falling asleep afterwards.”

Not a total lie, though it would have been more accurate to say that Victor had been sucked into a clickhole of video after video, and hadn’t been able to tear himself away from his laptop until nearly half past three in the morning.

It was entirely Yuuri Katsuki’s fault.

Victor had heard his name before, remembered seeing him on the score tables at Worlds last year— he knew now that Yuuri had been ranked seventh after the short program, though he dropped to ninth after the free— but he’d never actually managed to see the man skate. Until now, anyway. And he was _riveted_.

Yakov gave him a searching look, probably trying to discern some indication of a lie in Victor’s expression, but apparently Victor looked honest enough, because he simply shook his head after a moment and crossed his arms.

“I suppose I should be happy that you actually did as you were told for once,” he grumbled. “It won’t do to push yourself when you’re already tired. Go sit down, you can get back on the ice when it’s time for your afternoon session with Georgi.”

“But—!”

“No ‘buts,’ Vitya. We’re not risking an injury, not at your age.”

Victor went, though not without some internal protest that he wisely chose not to give voice to. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Yakov had a point. He’d been able to come back from his struggle with patellar tendonitis that had taken him out of competition for nearly half of the ‘06-‘07 season, but he was only eighteen then. It might not be so easy to battle through an injury at twenty-four.

“I’ll be in my office,” Yakov announced. “You can start warming up again when Georgi arrives.”

Victor raised a hand in acknowledgement as he sat down on the bench next to his bag.

His phone was out before Yakov’s office door had even fully latched, and he tapped impatiently against the fiberglass bench as he waited for the YouVid app to load. He had a new obsession, and he wasn’t about to waste the gift of an extra forty minutes or so of free time.

When the app finally stopped blinking at him and displayed a search bar, he quickly searched “yuuri katsuki fantasy on ice 2011.” That was where he’d left off in his web video escapades early that morning, and he was determined to pick right back up where he’d left off.

As the video buffered, the screen still displaying the cassette tape background in place of a video thumbnail due to the slowness of his data connection, Victor pondered the revelation that was Yuuri Katsuki.

At twenty years old, Yuuri was halfway through his third season in the senior division. When he made the transition to seniors at the start of the ’09-’10 season, he had also changed coaches and moved to the U.S. to study under Cialdini, which seemed to have served him pretty well so far. His junior career hadn’t been as meteoric as Victor or even Chris’s junior days had been, but he had been consistently among the top-ranked skaters every year since he moved up from novices. He hadn’t missed the podium at All-Japan at either the junior or senior level since he was fifteen, and this year he was fresh off his first national championship win back in December. Although he’d never taken gold at a major international event, he was currently ranked thirteenth among men’s singles skaters at the international level. He’d put in a handful of podium appearances at various competitions internationally, and had ranked in the top ten at Worlds last year and the year before. Victor suspected that after his success at Four Continents, Yuuri would probably now be considered one of the favorites this year.

He’d also been an alternate for the Vancouver Olympics, but that had been his first season in seniors, and his federation had bet on Nobunari Oda and some other skater whose name Victor couldn’t recall to fill their two Olympic slots that year. Not that the gamble had panned out particularly well, as only Oda had made it into the top ten. After all the recordings Victor had watched in the last twelve hours, he was confident that even then, Yuuri could have done better.

The video finally started playing, pixelated from how poor his data connection was. Close enough, he figured. He’d miss out on some of the nuance of the light design— one of Victor’s favorite parts of ice shows, from an artistic standpoint— but he’d get the gist, at least. His eyes were glued to Yuuri’s grainy figure on the tiny screen, taking the opening pose of the short program for this season that he’d debuted at his round of ice shows last summer. It was a lively routine, done to a peppy dance number from an old Broadway standard. The musical choice was a bit predictable, but the choreography was fun, and Victor really thought—

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

The voice speaking just inches from his ear nearly made Victor jump out of his skates. He fumbled with his phone to keep from dropping it, and paused the video before wrenching around in his seat to see who had spoken. Upon seeing an untamed mop of blazingly red curls, he huffed out a breathy chuckle.

“You gave me a fright, Mila! You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. Skaters have fragile hearts, you know. What if I’d dropped dead?”

The junior skater snorted, tossing a lock of that distinctive scarlet hair over her shoulder. “Please, you’re healthy as a horse. If your heart can take the kind of training you do, I’m sure a little thing like cardiac arrest won’t stop you.”

He shook his head with a wry smile. “Maybe you’re right.”

Her eyes dropped to the phone still clutched in his hand. “Is that Yuuri Katsuki?”

Victor tilted the screen to give her a better look. “You know of him?”

Mila nodded enthusiastically, beaming. “Yeah! I even met him once! He’s super reclusive, hardly anybody ever sees him at events, but during his last season in juniors, we were at the Warsaw Cup together. Novice A ladies and junior men skated back to back, so I ran into him a few times.”

Victor tapped thoughtfully at his lip for a moment as he contemplated that. “What’s he like?” he asked.

She gave him an amused grin, clearly amused at the question. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one who’s been competing in the same bracket with him for almost three seasons.”

“Well, _yes_ , but I’ve never met him!” he protested. He was aware that he sounded petulant but he couldn’t help it. His curiosity had been stirred by this Japanese enigma, and the fact that Yakov’s very smallest pupil had somehow not only known of him but met him in person while he himself had not was _unfair_.

Mila, perceptive as ever, didn’t miss his pout, and clearly found it amusing if her impish little giggle was anything to go by. “Alright, fine. He’s… uh…” She seemed stumped for a moment, screwing her lips to one side as she pondered. “I mean, I only talked to him for like a minute, but he was nice. Quiet, you know? But nice.”

Victor made a noncommittal noise. “Is that all?”

She gave him a _look_ . “Come on, I was eleven! And if you think my English is bad now, you should’ve heard it back then. Plus, like, his accent? _Intense_.”

“Alright, fair.”

“Why the sudden interest in Yuuri Katsuki, anyway?” she asked. Her blue eyes lit up with a suspected intrigue and she clasped her hands behind her back as she leaned in closer. “Is this one of those ‘ _Vitya things_ ’ Yakov’s been warning me about?”

It was a fair enough question, though he wondered if maybe he should be insulted by the phrasing. Why _was_ he so charmed by Yuuri?

It would be easy to put it down to Yuuri being beautiful and him being incredibly gay, all of which was technically true. There was something more to it, though, a fascination with his skating. Something about the way he moved felt so familiar, and Victor hadn’t yet been able to put his finger on why.

But he certainly wasn’t going to tell Mila Babicheva that. He gave an airy chuckle and painted on a carefree smile. “Oh, Yakov, always trying to tarnish my reputation,” he said. “I’m just curious about him.”

She clearly wasn’t buying it. Mila was an insightful little thing, had been from the minute she’d set foot on the ice at Champion. So Victor fell back on distraction techniques.

“Anyway, what are you doing here? Last I checked, you ought to be in school.”

Mila made an exaggerated sour face. “I’ve got an exam today. Polynomials. I didn’t study.”

As her senior rinkmate, Victor figured he probably ought to discourage that kind of behavior. He hadn’t been the most dedicated student when he was fourteen either, though, so he was pretty sure the hypocrisy of it showed in the look of disapproval he tried to conjure up. “You shouldn’t make a habit of skipping school,” he chided.

“I’m not skipping. Not exactly, anyway. I convinced Mama that I need more ice time so she’d pull me out today. Less than two weeks until Worlds, you know.” She tapped the side of her nose and winked at him.

“Ah, that’s right,” Victor said, “you did qualify for Junior Worlds. This will be your first year, right?”

She nodded. “I didn’t meet the age requirement last season because my birthday’s after the cutoff date. But this year I’m going, and I’m going to win.”

Victor chuckled. “Big talk from a young lady,” he teased.

“Says the guy who won Junior Worlds when he was barely thirteen,” she shot back.

“What can I say? I was lucky enough to be born before the ISO’s last age-eligibility changes would have affected me.”

Mila rolled her eyes. “Okay, sure.  You enjoy that ‘youngest junior world champion in history’ title. I’m still going to be the second woman ever to land a quad in competition, and the first European woman to do it.”

This passionate little announcement delighted Victor so much he couldn’t stop the pleased laughter that escaped him. “Very ambitious!” he said brightly. “But if you’re going to go for four rotations, you may want to work on mastering three and a half first.”

Mila’s eyes widened. “The triple axel?”

He gave her a conspiratorial wink. “The triple axel.”

“Yakov and Polina haven’t let me work on triple axels yet,” she said. Her eyes were still huge with excitement, but her hands were wringing together nervously.

“Your coaches know what they’re talking about, so you should trust their advice on a lot of things, but if you’re serious about winning, you need to take the initiative. You’re working on your other triples, right?”

She nodded.

“Well then, they think you’re physically developed enough for jumps with three rotations, so now is the time to push yourself beyond their expectations.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely,” he told her. “If you really want to land quads someday, you will need lots of upper body strength to get the rotations in, so you’re going to want to start extra strength training very soon.”

Mila nodded again, unusually solemn. Victor realized that she was taking his guidance very seriously, and it warmed something deep in his chest.

“Tell you what. I have—” He glanced at his phone. “—Thirty-four minutes of private ice time left. If you want to work on that triple axel, I can give you some pointers.”

“Would you really?” she asked. She’d never been starstruck in his presence the way many skaters his age seemed to be in the last few years, but her tone had gone a little breathless and she was more eager than he’d ever seen her. It was a little endearing. Mila was so precocious that it was easy to forget that she was almost a decade younger than him, but right now he was being reminded quite viscerally.

“Absolutely!” He got to his feet, careful in his skates. “Yakov got fed up with me and told me to stay off the ice until my regular time today, but it would be a shame to waste the time, wouldn’t it?”

Without another word, she hurried to the gate. As she slipped her blade guards off, she said, “I jogged from home and stretched out in the multipurpose room, so I should be warmed up enough.”

He nodded. “Take another few minutes to run through some of the on-ice warm-ups Polina usually puts you through. Three and a half rotations is a lot, you know.”

She flashed him a bright grin. “Yeah, I know.”

And then she was off, a black and scarlet streak across the ice. Victor leaned against the boards as he watched her start on a lap around the rink, his encouraging grin settling into a quieter smile.

* * *

 

Victor caught hell from Yakov for encouraging Mila’s truancy, of course, but the whole encounter had put him in such a good mood that even disapproval from his coach couldn’t spoil his day. He felt lighter on his feet than usual as he ran through his short program during their morning session, and engaged in a spirited debate with Georgi over lunch regarding the relative merit of the programs at Four Continents.

This quickly derailed when both Georgi and Yakov worked out that Victor had not, in fact, watched all of the programs of note and actually only had anything relevant to say when it came to Yuuri Katsuki.

“I’m not disagreeing with you, Victor. Katsuki’s good, I agree. But he’s only ranked thirteenth internationally this year,” Georgi said mulishly.

“Says the man who’s only ranked four spots above him,” Victor shot back primly before taking a sip of his sports drink.

Georgi made an absolutely foul expression. Ninth in the world heading into the World Championships was an excellent standing, but Georgi had been ranked higher this time last year, and he did not seem to enjoy being reminded of that fact.

“He’s inconsistent,” he said, for what felt like the fifth or sixth time since they’d sat down to eat. “He underrotates his quad toe or takes a fall as often as he lands it clean, he’s not a real threat to you or me.”

“Yes, but look at his footwork!” Victor protested. “Have you looked at his PCS this season? He hasn’t had an SS score below 9.4, and the rest of his components are just as strong. That’s not inconsistent at all— not everything is about technical elements.”

Georgi snorted derisively. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“It’s true whether I’m the one saying it or not.”

“Yes, but I’ve seen you practice. Keeping up with you technically is a pain as it is and what are you doing? You’re working on yet another quad!”

Victor opened his mouth to retort, but a pair of large square hands coming to rest on both of their shoulders silenced him before he could formulate a reply.

“I strongly suggest the both of you stop yapping and start eating your damned lunch,” Yakov said with a withering glare that he distributed evenly between his two charges.

Reluctantly the two of them settled in to finish their food, and Yakov started in on a monologue of sorts. Yakov’s monologues were generally lectures in the academic sense. If figure skating had been a course of study at a university, Yakov would have been a celebrated provost. These lectures had impressed Victor a great deal when he was eight and studying as a novice under one of Yakov’s affiliate coaches, but he had lost his taste for them over the years. Given Yakov’s subject matter today, however, he found himself being drawn in.

“Regardless of the fact that you’re squabbling like infants, neither of you is precisely wrong about Katsuki,” he said, still giving them a steely look. “He’s _not_ consistent from a technical standpoint. If you watch closely, you can see the hesitation on his jump takeoffs during certain performances. He doesn’t _commit_ to it, he holds himself back and then he can’t land the damn thing. That’s the main reason he doesn’t score higher than he does. I don’t know why his team hasn’t put him in a jump harness to get a better feel for that quad toe.

“But Vitya has a point to say that his pure skating skills are remarkable. Jump entrance issues aside, he’s one of the best there is in terms of transitions, and his interpretation is always top-notch. It’s a shame he’s stuck with Cialdini’s tepid choreography… the man’s a coach, not a choreographer, I’ve no idea why he thinks he has any business doing both for his seniors skaters. At the very least for a skater like Katsuki he really ought to be—”

As he sensed Yakov veering off on a tangent, Victor tuned him out. He was perfectly happy to disagree with Yakov on the subject of Celestino Cialdini’s choreography; his coach had never forgiven the man for snatching gold at the European Championships out from under his nose during Yakov’s final competitive season in the late seventies. Victor was of the opinion that Cialdini’s choreographic work was lovely, if a bit one-dimensional. For the average skater it was fine, though he supposed Yakov had a point that someone like Yuuri really ought to be given more advanced choreography, something to take advantage of his strengths.

Yakov’s monologue seemed to have turned back in a direction worth listening to, because he turned to look directly at Victor as he added, “I’m glad to hear you taking an interest in him, Vitya. It’s very sportsmanlike to be aware of your peers, and he’s obviously a fan of yours. Maybe some acknowledgement from someone he looks up to will help motiva—”

Victor’s palm slammed down on the table almost involuntarily. “That’s it!” he exclaimed, hardly caring that he’d interrupted his coach mid-sentence. With Yakov’s words, all the pieces had come together quite suddenly in his mind. “ _That’s_ what I kept seeing in his skating! Yakov, you’re brilliant! Everything makes sense now! He’s my _fan!_ ”

A moment of ringing silence followed this declaration. Then Georgi burst into laughter.

“Good lord, Victor!” he sputtered between chuckles. “How much bigger can your ego possibly get?”

“I’m serious!” he protested. “Just look at his junior programs if you don’t believe me! The more I think about it— yes, I’m certain of it. His last season in juniors, when he took silver at Worlds, just look at— Georgi, _stop laughing!_ ”

But Georgi did not seem inclined to quiet his amusement at Victor’s expense. “I must laugh or I’ll _cry_ ,” he declared. “Victor, Katsuki isn’t some novice who grew up with you being household name. He’s our peer, you can’t _seriously_ think that much of yourself that you think someone nearly your own age admires you enough to imitate your programs, can you?”

“I— well—” Victor floundered. That was exactly what he’d thought, but when Georgi put it in those terms, it sounded… arrogant. And while an overdose of confidence was a trait Victor knew he possessed, he did try to keep from being genuinely arrogant. Was the familiarity he’d felt in Yuuri’s skating really the product of his own ego?

“I agree with Georgi,” Yakov said, “and I don’t like that complacency, either. You start getting too comfortable with your place at the top, and you’ll lose it just like that.” He snapped his fingers in Victor’s face.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said with an easy smile. “I could be mistaken.”

It appeased Georgi and Yakov, but privately Victor resolved to look more closely at Yuuri’s skating when he got home that evening. He had felt too certain, at the moment of his epiphany, to let it go just because someone else disagreed— and Victor had never been the type to let others’ opinions dictate to him.

Perhaps Yakov sensed his little internal mutiny, because he put him through another hellish practice once they returned to the ice after lunch. Victor limped home with a broken blister on his left toe and a deep gratitude for the fact that Wednesdays were light conditioning days.

* * *

 

_March 6th, 2012 - Saint Petersburg, Russia_

With the World Championships looming ever closer, Victor was busy enough that his mind was taken off Yuuri Katsuki for several days. The pressure was on, for the defending champion arguably more so than anyone else in the field. Victor threw himself into practice and trying to get his sleep schedule back under regulation, and perhaps if it had been left at that, that would have been the end of his fixation on the younger skater.

But then the article came out.

It was early March. The late-winter sunlight was doing next to nothing to warm the chilly streets of the city, but there was a hint of spring in the air nonetheless. Makkachin, as she always was this time of winter, was tired of being so much indoors for so many months. Georgi was still smitten with his girl, Yakov was likely giving himself some sort of hypertension with how much he was yelling, and Mila Babicheva had returned from Minsk with a bronze medal she was only moderately satisfied with. She’d finished after an American and a plucky little slip of a girl from Yekaterinburg, having propelled herself into third place at the Junior World Championships with a surprise upgrade from a double axel to a triple axel. The jump had been sloppily-executed, but it was just enough points-wise to land her a spot on the podium and a lecture from Yakov. (Victor had also gotten a lecture from Yakov once Mila had spilled the beans about who had been working on the 3A with her.) All in all, it was par for the course for the first week of March in the life of Victor Nikiforov.

When he stopped at his box in the lobby of his building to pick up his mail after practice, he saw that the latest issue of BLADE had arrived. The periodical, dedicated to ice sports, was one part trade journal and one part gossip rag, the perfect blend of serious journalism and rinkside buzz, and Victor had read since he’d been old enough to beg his parents to pay for a subscription.

The magazine had a website now, of course, and he supposed he could have cancelled his subscription and just read the articles there. There was just something _satisfying_ about having the physical copy in his hands, though, that Victor wasn’t willing to relinquish. It was similar to his attachment to printed books; Chris could rave about his e-reader all he wanted, but Victor would still staunchly refuse to buy one. He kept buying paperbacks and elaborately-embossed copies of his favorite novels, and he kept up his monthly subscription to BLADE.

When he settled in on his couch for the evening and opened the issue, he found himself deeply grateful for that choice, because one of the featured articles was an interview with Yuuri Katsuki, complete with an accompanying photo spread.

He perused the photos first, because he was a weak, weak man and Yuuri Katsuki was very, very nice to look at.

It was a great layout, which didn’t surprise him in the slightest. BLADE’s photographers were generally fantastic— and Victor would know, having been the subject of interviews and skater profiles for them quite a few times in the past. The feature opened with a full-page portrait of Yuuri, lounging in casual blazer and dark washed jeans against a pleasantly neutral taupe backdrop. He gazed out from the page at Victor with an unreadable look in his eyes. The whole thing was framed in just the right way to make him look intense, mysterious, and ever so slightly dangerous-- no doubt exactly what the editors had been aiming for. In the lower right hand corner was the title of the article: **_Japan's New Ace_ **. Below it in smaller print was a short blurb:

> _The Land of the Rising Sun may have a new rising star. Yuuri Katsuki of Kyushu, recently the Four Continents silver medallist, is a small town boy who's on the cusp of making it big._

Victor snorted at the predictable print journalism theatrics and flipped through the article. He was intent on examining the other photos scattered throughout the eight page spread. Much as he enjoyed reading, he'd always believed in the old adage that a picture was worth a thousand words.

It was a flattering portrayal. The first page featured an image of Yuuri leaning against the boards of a rink the caption declared to be his training rink with the Detroit Skate Club, talking to Cialdini. Obviously posed, but compellingly shot nonetheless. Another on the third page captured the beautiful Y-spiral position he apparently had been known for since his junior days. Most of the photos were in the same vein, capturing Yuuri on the ice, in his workout clothes, at the barre in a nondescript ballet studio. The photojournalist had created the profile of a serious, dedicated athlete; it was exactly the kind of image the FFKK had always wished Victor would show to the media. He wondered whether it was an accurate portrayal of Yuuri’s nature.

He flipped back to the first page of the article and started reading, curious now about the writer’s take on Yuuri Katsuki.

> For a man with such enthralling presence on the ice, Yuuri Katsuki in the flesh proves to be surprisingly unassuming. Notorious for rarely giving making media appearances outside of skating events, the reclusive skater is something of a mystery even to his most dedicated fans. After having been lucky enough to schedule an interview, I now suspect that his reluctance to appear for anything more than rinkside soundbites at competitions stems, not from a cold personality, as some have speculated, but rather from an excess of humility— a rarity in a sport ruled by the Nikiforovs and Giacomettis of the world.
> 
> I caught up with Japan’s new national champion at a cafe in Detroit, not far from the Wayne State campus where Katsuki takes classes as an exchange student. He was casually dressed, bundled up against the chill of Michigan winters in a warm sweater, sipping at a latte while he waited for me. His accent when he greeted me was light and pleasant to listen to, no doubt tempered by more than two years of living in the Midwest.
> 
> Given this rare opportunity to speak to one of the field’s most elusive athletes, I was not about to waste it; if there’s one thing fans of such a dramatic sport love more than the competition itself, it’s the gossip.
> 
> My attempt at breaking the ice with a light question backfired. Katsuki clammed right up when asked if he was seeing anyone at the moment, giving me an intriguing, but very firm “no comment.”
> 
> Forced to try a different angle, I asked how he was enjoying life in Michigan.
> 
> “It’s fine. Much colder than home in the winter, but my rinkmates are all very nice, and I’ve made some friends in my classes.”
> 
> With a little more prompting on my part, he elaborated: “There was definitely some— what’s it called, culture shock? Yeah, there was definitely a lot of that at first. And Detroit is also bigger than Hasetsu, so I had to adjust to living in a city. Also, my English wasn’t as good then, so I struggled a lot with that, but I think I’m really starting to settle in now.”
> 
> When I asked about how he made the decision to move to the United States to begin his senior division career under renowned coach Celestino Cialdini, Katsuki seems almost embarrassed by his answer.
> 
> “As soon as I started to become serious about skating, I knew I would have to move abroad. Figure skating is not a very big sport in Japan, so if I wanted to have access to good facilities and a coach who could help me do my best, I had to go somewhere else.” He became visibly flustered, and explained that he probably should not have said so much. “It’s not that I’m not grateful for the support of my country,” he added. “But I know if I had stayed in Japan I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities that I have here.”
> 
> Uncomfortable truth or not, Katsuki is quite correct in his assessment.  Japanese skaters have been dominating the ladies singles division for years, with both Yuki Satou and Erika Sasegawa following in the footsteps of the legendary Mao Asada, but very few notable names have emerged from the country in the other disciplines. Part of the reason for that is the lack of Japanese coaches capable of taking a skater to the highest levels of competition. In light of that, Katsuki’s decision to contract with Cialdini makes perfect sense.
> 
> In fact, it’s this lack of international prominence in the men’s division that makes Katsuki such an exciting prospect. With the star of the country’s last champion showing signs of fading, no doubt Japanese skating fans are watching the career of their new ace with much anticipation.
> 
> I asked him how he feels about the rumors of Nobunari Oda’s impending retirement, which have emerged among skating fans since a recent injury caused him to withdraw from Japan’s national championships.
> 
> “I don’t know anything about it. Oda-san has always been a little like a mentor to me, but we’re not so close that he would tell me something like that. I don’t think I would have won All-Japan back in December if he had been skating. He’s still the best male skater in Japan, so I hope to see him on the ice for a long time.”
> 
> That was all he would say on the subject, adamant that he would not gossip about his competitor’s career prospects. This was fine by me, because I, like Japan, am much more interested in Yuuri Katsuki’s career prospects.
> 
> Katsuki’s junior days were a long string of “almosts.” He almost qualified for the Junior Grand Prix Finals in 2007 and 2008, but never put in a JGPF appearance. He almost won the Junior World Championship in 2009, but ended up taking silver with a score just fractions of a point below the gold medallist. He almost won any number of other international competitions, and has ended up with a collection of silver and bronze that nearly any skater in the field would be proud to claim. Then, after a senior debut season full of ups and downs, last season saw a steady climb through the world rankings for Katsuki, culminating in a top ten finish at Worlds. With his recent silver placement at Four Continents, he’s become an instant favorite for a spot on the podium at the end of March.
> 
> When asked about his hopes for the upcoming World Championship, Katsuki gave a surprisingly non-committal answer. “I hope to do my best and give performances that will make my supporters happy.”

The article continued for several pages more, outlining the writer’s account of a visit to Yuuri’s training facility, including a conversation with Cialdini and his insights into Yuuri’s career. Later, Victor would return to it and eagerly read the rest, greedy for more information, but at that line he found that he had to set the magazine aside and process what he’d just read.

“Боже мой,” he breathed. “He’s _perfect_.”

Glancing down at where his dog had her chin resting over his thigh, he said, “Makkachin, I have to talk to him at Worlds.”

* * *

 

 _Yuuri groans and buries his face in his hands. “Oh god, I can’t believe you read that article! I_ hated _that interview!”_

_“What? Why?”_

_He shrugs. “I don’t know, the way the writer phrased everything made me seem so… so… I don’t know, something I’m not?”_

_“How so?”_

_“He made me sound all mysterious and like a competent adult who had any clue what he was doing!” he exclaims, voice muffled by his palms._

_“Are you saying you weren’t?”_

_Yuuri finally raises his head from his hands and gives Victor a withering look. “I was barely twenty.”_

_Victor appears to spend a moment contemplating this, perhaps remembering his own tumultuous twentieth year— some of which Yuuri is familiar with because it was well-documented by both the domestic and international press— and winces. “Fair enough. But you know, I don’t think he was that far off the mark.”_

_Yuuri’s expression is skeptical. “What do you mean?”_

_“Well, it’s obvious he was trying to paint you as some sort of reclusive dark horse type, which of course isn’t true— though I admit, it certainly contributed to my first impressions of you— but thinking back on it now, the interview mostly left me with the idea that you were very sweet and conscientious. A gentleman. The sort of boy you could bring home to meet your parents, you know?”_

_The look in his eyes is very pointed, and very sentimental as he says it. Yuuri can feel his cheeks heating up in response, and hides his face again, this time in Victor’s shoulder. Victor chuckles and squeezes his arm affectionately._

_“You’re adorable, Лапочка,” Victor adds. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were a playboy.”_

_Befuddled for perhaps the hundredth time that evening, Yuuri looks up. “I… what? You thought_ I _was a player?”_

_Victor gives a little hum of acknowledgement. “Why do you think I choreographed Eros in the first place?”_

_Yuuri blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Repeats this several times. “Eros is… about_ me? _”_

_Victor lets out that silver-bell laugh of his. “Of course! I can’t believe you never guessed.” Then a thought occurs to him, and he taps thoughtfully at his lips with the index finger of his free hand. “Though I suppose if you don’t remember our dance at the banquet, you wouldn’t have any reason to… oh. Quite a few things make more sense, now. Hmm…”_

_He shakes his head firmly, as if to clear it. “But there now, we’re getting distracted. I believe I was telling you how I had just made the resolution to talk to you at Worlds, yes?”_

_“Except you didn’t talk to me at Worlds that year,” Yuuri points out._

_Victor sighs. “No, I did not. I got a little distracted from my goal, I’m afraid.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> International competitions for the novice division are few and far between, so perhaps it's stretching the suspension of disbelief for Mila to have met Yuuri, even at one of the competitions that does include novices, but we'll call it artistic license, shall we?
> 
> The Russian in this chapter:  
> Боже мой - "My god"  
> Лапочка - "Lapochka," a term of endearment
> 
> I hope to have the next chapter up much sooner than this one, as it's much more clearly-defined in terms of content than this one was before I started it. Thank you again for your patience, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!


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